


Denouement

by BaffledFox



Series: Prompted [16]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional, End of a Relationship, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29587227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaffledFox/pseuds/BaffledFox
Summary: The Omnic crisis is on the Horizon and Jack is ready to be in charge.Before he heads off to war he decides to take leave and go back home to the farm. He’s ready to propose to Vincent.Nothing is as easy as he planned; but it turns out to be what they both needed.
Relationships: Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison/Vincent
Series: Prompted [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/962163
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. Plans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DaftFloyd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaftFloyd/gifts).



> Dedicated to my partner. We have had a rough last year, and there’s a lot of places and people we can never go back to again. This is sort of a conglomerate of those feelings and thoughts. 
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy.

Jack had just been promoted. 

He was now in charge of the newest problem Overwatch had to face: The Omnic Crisis. 

Just a few months in and it was already one of the hardest problems he had to face in his career thus far. He was due to deploy to the front lines, no longer just managing the problems on the back end. 

Because of his upcoming deployment he had been given leave, since who knows if he would come back alive, in one piece, or at all. Most of the higher ranked soldiers had been given the luxury of time off, if they decided to take it. 

Ana, however, had chosen to stay on base and continue managing affairs. She had urged him to take his time, to do what she knew he needed to do, and that he shouldn’t worry while he was away. 

Jack hadn’t had leave in such a long time, he couldn’t even recall when exactly he had visited his home for the last time before. Couldn’t recall the last time he had seen Vincent face to face and not on a video call, or in photographs. 

The letters between them, the calls, all of it had been getting more and more sparse as time drew on. 

Jack wasn’t sure if it was his fault, or Vincent’s, as to why the communication was becoming so sporadic. Was he just too busy? Or was it because Vincent had stopped picking up video calls? 

He was under so much pressure, and so much stress, he really couldn’t keep it all straight anymore. 

When he was younger, innocent and fresh to the military, everything felt like a new possibility. Like he had finally realized his dreams, and he could take Vincent along into those dreams. War didn’t feel real yet, and the idea of dying wasn’t on his mind. He was young, full of life, and he felt like he could solve every problem in the whole world. 

He wanted to be a hero. 

He used to write every moment he got, even exhausted from basic training, or from the grueling tests of the SEP. He’d sneak in time before bed and pen letters to his sweetheart back home on the farm. 

Letters that were full of emotion, of heartfelt love, of endless adoration. 

The time apart, at first, had made him yearn for the simplicity of home and for Vincent’s beautiful smile. 

But, as time drew on, and he got older and more hardened by the places he’d been, by the things he’d seen--

The idea of simple farm life, and even a simple love, felt almost like an afterthought. 

Was he the problem? 

It just started to feel like that life, people like Vincent--those were the things he wanted to protect, to keep pure, to keep safe. He went to war because he wanted that apple pie life to be preserved. 

But, did he want it to be preserved for himself? 

His doubts made him unsure if it was him or Vincent that grew distant. Maybe it was both of them? Whatever had happened, or when, Jack could feel the fracture as if it were a broken bone. 

Everything in him wanted to fix it. 

Vincent was his snapshot of his boyhood, his first love, the end of his innocence; he represented endless cornflower blue skies, warm summer sun and fragrant corn fields. 

Vincent was his home. 

It was why he felt he needed to fix the divide between them. He felt he needed to make a concrete promise to preserve this love. 

Jack had gotten good at solving problems because of his military experience. Nothing felt overwhelming anymore, even this. Anything, everything, could be broken down into simple facts. Everything could simply be point A and point B and the plan of action to connect those dots.

He felt he already formulated the correct plan. 

On his desk was a plane ticket for Indiana, with ample time to spend with his family and Vincent. He would need to go to the airport soon, but back at his apartment his bag was packed, he was ready to go. 

Jack reached into his front jacket pocket and pulled out a velvet ring box; he held it between his hands above the plane ticket on his desk. He wasn’t nervous, or excited, or any emotion really. It just felt like a solution, like he had been given a mission directive and he needed to follow through with it. 

This would fix their problems. 

He’d commit himself completely to Vincent, and eventually he’d persuade his lover to move onto base with him(once they were married). The life he wanted was within his grasp, he could keep this innocent love preserved under glass forever. 

He wanted that, didn’t he? 

Jack popped the ring box open to reveal a simple silver band with a sapphire inlaid in the center. It glinted softly in the dim light of his office, and mentally he went over exactly how he wanted to propose, over the words he wanted to say. 

He could do this. 

He wanted to do this. 

Unexpectedly there was a knock on his door; immediately he snapped the box shut and put it back into his coat pocket just as Ana walked into the room. “Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?” She said with a calm smile, “You should hurry it up, your ride is getting impatient out there.” 

Jack plucked the ticket off his desk as he stood, “You’re right. I shouldn’t waste any more time.” 

Ana held the door open as Jack walked out into the hallway, “Have a good vacation, Jack, you earned it.” 

“Thanks.” He said, flashing a smile over his shoulder before he disappeared around the corner, ready to get his bag from his apartment before he’d rendezvous with his ride outside.


	2. Memories

Jack had landed in Indiana the next morning. 

His mother had picked him up in their family’s old pick up truck. The seats were worn down white leather, the engine still had that knock to it, the truck itself rumbled like an asthmatic old hound dog as it puttered down the narrow streets of their town. 

He talked to his mom about time spent abroad, the military, and everything he missed in Indiana. She told him about the goings on in the town, and how the farm life was finally taking a toll on her old bones. 

Maybe it was just hard to realize in videos or pictures; but being this close to his mom he could really see her age. The crows feet at the edges of her eyes, the wrinkles around her mouth, how her sunbeam hair had turned bone white. At least her blue eyes were still bright and alert as always; even if they were behind glasses now. 

Jack’s father passed away a few years prior; that had been the last time he was in Indiana. What felt like a blink to him, had been years; the same way the truck felt like it was breaking down, and how old his mother looked. Maybe he just was never really ready to accept that nothing could last forever; even the nostalgic staples of home. 

It made him realize just how long it had been since he had actually been there in person. Not to mention the leave for the funeral wasn’t a happy event. It had also been unexpected, so the leave he’d requested from the military had been short. 

Jack couldn’t even recall if he caught up much with Vincent during that time. Vincent had been at the funeral, he came for dinner at the farm house, but beyond that—

No, he didn’t need to think about that right now. 

Especially not when his mom was trying to push leivity between them, when she made her usual lament, ‘So when am I getting grandkids?’ 

He didn’t tell her he was going to propose to Vincent, and he couldn’t push himself to tell her now. 

Just like he didn’t tell her why he had gotten this leave. He didn’t talk about the new crisis on the horizon and he didn’t divulge any of the negative thoughts in his head. 

Instead he just talked about the truck and all the memories it brought back. 

Just idle talk; when his dad had first brought the old clunker home(it had been old even before it was bought). He remembered how it rattled up the dirt driveway the first time and how his mother assessed the thing with hands on her hips. 

At least back then the truck was painted a bright blue; had a young shine to it, had fresh tires and the seats didn’t have holes in them yet. Now the old thing had rust and bald spots, and he didn’t think his mom had done much maintenance on it since his dad had passed. 

He’d learned to drive in this truck. He’d go on nightly joyrides with Vincent in this truck. He used to fill the bed with pillows and blankets, and the two of them would park out somewhere remote to watch the stars, cuddle, and talk about their dreams. 

Eventually the conversation between he and his mom would dry up and they’d spend the rest of the time in comfortable silence. 

It would be a few hours before they’d finally come up the driveway to his childhood home. The farmhouse wasn’t very big, the paint was peeling and the roof shingles were old; but it was planted on a few acres of land. The land was well maintained; the honeyed grass shimmered in the afternoon sunlight and the surrounding corn fields swayed in the warm breeze. 

Near the house were his mother’s vegetable and flower gardens; way out beyond that were the animal pens and the big red barn. 

When he was younger, their golden retriever used to run down the drive to meet the truck. But Bella had been dead for twelve years now. Jack had still been struck by the memory of it though, as if he expected to hear her energetic bark and the sound of her nails scraping on the passenger door, too impatient to let the truck roll completely to a stop in front of the home. 

Maybe it had really just been too long since he’d come home, he was just feeling nostalgic for all the things he couldn’t get back—

Like the sight of his dad standing in the doorway of the house, waving him home like he used to do every time he got home late. 

Jack was realizing that so many things had changed since he left for the military as a fresh eighteen year old. That this might’ve been his home at one time but it wasn’t anymore. It felt more like a memory, even though he was staring straight at it, even though his mother was alive and well next to him and that his engagement ring was sitting heavy in his pocket. 

What was wrong with him?

As the truck quieted and his mom got out of the driver’s seat, he finally got himself out as well, planting his boots onto the dirt road. He reached over to get his duffel from the bed of it and when he shut the door he saw the claw marks in the pain of the passenger door. So many of them the door almost looked white and he couldn’t help but rest his palm against them briefly.

Out behind the house was Bella’s grave, marked by a white wooden cross. 

“Jack?” His mother’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts, “Got something on your mind?” 

He looked at her concerned expression but shook his head, “Just been a while.” 

She smiled and patted his shoulder, “It has been. Maybe you can try and visit more often.” She said with a wink, trying to lighten the mood even if they both knew he couldn’t come by more frequently. 

It was what he signed up for. 

Climbing the ranks meant he’d have less and less time. He had been willing to make that sacrifice before, and he was still willing to continue to make that sacrifice. 

It was just hard realizing that his past might soon just fade away into real memories; and not stay tangible places or people he could visit from time to time. 

“I was going to cook your favorite tonight.” She said, opening the door of the house and letting them both inside. 

“Sounds great.” Jack said, and he meant it, even if his heart felt hollow.


End file.
